Zohran Mamdani's Success Campaigning on Groceries Underscores Handwringing Over Rising Food Costs
New York Assemblyman Zohran Mamdani secured the mayoral nomination in last week's Democratic primary election—a sign local voters connected with his promises to ease rising grocery prices and other symptoms of the city's crippling cost-of-living crunch.
A recent report offers an explanation for why his message landed.
Prices outpace income
Grocery prices have risen 56% across the New York metropolitan region between 2012-2013 and 2022-2023—roughly 10% higher than the national average, according to a cost-of-living report released in April by New York Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli. By comparison, household incomes haven't kept up with those increases, growing just 52% during the same period.
In addition, New York City’s food-price index—a statistic that tracks price changes among various pantry staples—rose 8.8% from 2021 to 2022, marking its largest increase in more than four decades.
“Food prices rose sharply during the pandemic, putting more New Yorkers at risk of going hungry,” DiNapoli said in the report.
The Comptroller’s report came amid Mamdani's bid to clinch the Democratic nomination for New York City mayor with a platform that focused on affordability issues, including the rising cost of food across the city.
On the campaign trail, Mamdani addressed voters’ concerns by vowing to create a pilot program of municipal-owned grocery stores that would sell pantry staples such as flour and eggs at ultra-competitive prices. Over the last decade, grocery prices have outpaced income in New York by 14 percentage points, and it’s clear that New Yorkers are feeling the pinch.
A new poll by non-profit organization Data for Progress found that 91% of New Yorkers are concerned about the impact of inflation on their ability to put food on the table. Meanwhile, more than 40% of New York voters have pointed to the skyrocketing cost of living in the city as their chief concern, putting the issue ahead of crime and immigration, a 2023 Siena College poll shows.
Mamdani has vowed to address those concerns by ratcheting back regulations for mom-and-pop grocers, a move that would allow more small grocers offering potentially competitive prices to set up shop in the city. Additionally, the candidate said he would grant special tax breaks to small grocers, allowing them to offer better deals to shoppers.
While it’s not yet certain that Mamdani will secure the mayorship on Election Day in November, one thing is clear: Our city’s next leader would be wise to make a point of addressing the dire need to combat ballooning food prices across the boroughs.